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Brianna Arandia

Professor Gabriella

SOC 01

4 October 2019

The Giver

The film, “The Giver” (2014), directed by Phillip Noyce is based on the book, “The

Giver” by Lois Lowry. The film portrays a society where there isn’t a lot of freedom for the

people. In the society, the people don’t have a lot of control over their own lives. The society that

they live in is very different when compared to ours. Some examples of how their lives are

different include how their jobs are chosen for them and they aren’t allowed to experience things

like love, pain, and color. The people in charge of the society are able to keep the people from

experiencing love, pain, and color by keeping memories of the past from them, having strict

rules, and making the people take shots to stop them from seeing color. The reasoning for this is

to keep everyone equal. The main character, Jonas, was chosen to be the only person, other than

the person who gave him the memories, who would remember everything for the society. Jonas

realized how wrong it was for the people to be denied the opportunity to experience so many
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things like love, pain and color. Jonas decided to go against the rules and escaped the society.

Using the Symbolic Interaction Theory to interpret “The Giver,” one can understand the

dynamics between the people in charge and the citizens in the society.

George Herbert Mead, a representative theorist for the Symbolic Interaction Theory,

would have seen “The Giver” as a good example of people’s behavior being influenced by the

behaviors of others. Mead theorized that a person’s idea of themselves originates from social

interaction with others. The movie showed people in the society behaving under the influence of

others and on their interactions with others. Everyone behaved like each other because equality

between them all was sort of being forced onto them. They all behaved similarly because that

was what everyone was doing. An example of this is their normal social interaction. They were

able to converse, but they couldn’t have any fun that disturbed the peace and they couldn’t

express love towards each other. The film supports the Symbolic Interaction Theory because the

theory focuses on how society is socially constructed by people interacting and that people

behave based on their interactions with others. Since almost everyone in the film acted serious

and humorless, they were all influenced to act the same way.

The film inspires change because it shows a person going against what everyone else is

doing, even though he knew that he could suffer terrible consequences. His actions inspire us to

stand up for what we think is right rather than staying with what we are comfortable with. He

lived a comfortable life and left it because he knew the society’s rules were wrong. The film

inspires us to look for what might be wrong with our own society by giving an example of a

terrible society.
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“The Giver” is a great movie that definitely makes you look at your own society and

inspires change in society. The film gives a good example of a bad society where people don’t

really have a say in anything. It shows us a society that we wouldn’t want, unless you like your

life to be fully controlled by whoever is in charge. The film inspires us to take charge of our own

lives and to not allow our society to become like the society in the film. This is shown by the

main character when he realized right from wrong and decided to actually do something about

his situation, even though he knew of the bad consequences that he would have to face if he were

caught.